Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Liam, you have been evicted. Please leave the Tory Madhouse. (It's just pantomime booing, babes.)

It was only a couple of days ago that Theresa May supporters were apparently talking about tactically voting for Leadsom to prevent Gove reaching the members' ballot. Now that proposed strategy seems to have flipped, with Leadsom being regarded as the real threat to May, which raises the bizarre prospect of May supporters trying to help the hated Gove into the final two. He certainly seems to be firmly within striking distance of Leadsom if that stunt is attempted on a big enough scale.

UPDATE : Stephen Crabb has pulled out voluntarily, so we're suddenly less than 48 hours away from the moment of truth.

I think the Tories should just be told to hurry up and have the final result in a month. There's no need for almost two months of miserable crap about which shade of 'orrible Tory we are getting next. Far too drawn out, presumably to deflect from other issues and allow them to shape things the way they want....

The British will leave and the economy will prosper. The only problem is the Jokes will stay and collect their subsidy. But they may just leave and prostrate themselves tae Frau Merkel. That will mean that Germany will be on the English border without a fight.

She might now. If Fox and Crabb's votes split equally amongst the three, May will have 55%. But...

Iain above asked 'I forgot to add, why didn't they just have a transferable vote or would that concept have fried the brains of Tory MPs?'

So they can conduct quickie polls of the party membership between rounds to work out who should be the second candidate offered to them. At this point, Leadsom or Gove? Because if all of Crabb and Fox's votes went to Gove, he'd jump ahead of Leadsom, virtually guaranteeing a coronation of May by the party membership.

Oh, and I think Tory MPs are not strictly obligated to vote for the same candidate they supported in previous rounds. Their first preference isn't the same as their final preference. May could be the next candidate rejected, however unlikely that seems at the moment.

No. As has been pointed out, their boring tv, radio and tory rags time on this will be long and drawn out, to distract from other majorly important issues going on.

They will be plotting, and even planning, their next move to stifle Scottish independence and any notion of Scotland remaining in the EU. They are playing for time, hence the hold up with article50. They will use EU nationals as a bargaining tool, against EU using Scotland as a bargaining tool. Though the EU clearly wants rid of england asap.

The main concern is timing, how does Scotland go forward. The tories as usual are playing games with peoples' lives, they do not care one bit that many will suffer as a consequence, losing jobs, businesses, homes, paying much more for daily basics. Then, once human rights are ditched, by Sept this year, they have even more power. Scary stuff.

Nerd-type question for James or Scottish Skier or anyone else who can help. Is it possible to estimate in an STV election what the drop off rate is from 1st to 2nd preferences, 2nd to 3rd, etc. Any reasonably eliable guesstimates from previous elections or is it too dependent on factors specific to each individual election? Asking for a friend.

Did he? I saw him tweeting that MSPs endorsed it, and then quoting Tom McCabe calling the SNP "opportunistic and repugnant" for opposing it. Not sure how any of that makes him a "quisling traitor" (isn't that redundant, btw? Quislings are traitors by definition).

Labour took an absolute pounding in the 2003 election - just 35% of the constituency vote, and an embarrassing 29% of the list vote. The quirks of the electoral system spared their blushes to some extent, but they still lost six seats, and the Labour/Lib Dem coalition came very close to losing its majority.